President Richard Nixon’s response to a question from Iowa broadcast journalist Grant Price (left) about the agriculture industry during a nationally televised press conference in 1974 that made national headlines is still remembered today. A CBS Radio link to the exchange is available online at https://pastdaily.com/nixon-press-conference-march-19-1974/. Photos courtesy of Jeff Stein and Wikipedia
July/Aug 2026 (Volume 18, Issue 4)
By Jeff Stein
Legendary Iowa broadcast journalist Grant Price only participated in a single presidential news conference during his five-decade career.
But it was a memorable one.
Price’s question, asked at the height of the Watergate investigation, made headlines across the nation and caused an already embattled President Richard Nixon to face political problems in farm country, as well.
The news conference was held as part of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 1974. The event was televised nationally, given the special interest in Nixon’s comments on public matters and the growing pressure on him to leave office; in fact, that very day, Republican U.S. Sen. James L. Buckley from New York was the first conservative Republican to call on Nixon to resign.
Price was vice president of news for the Black Hawk Broadcasting Co. and KWWL-TV/AM/FM in Waterloo. He had previously worked in radio in Sioux City and Waterloo before spending a decade and a half at WMT-TV/AM/FM in Cedar Rapids; he moved to rival KWWL in 1972 and soon led them to become the dominant television news ratings leader in the market for three decades.
In an interview with this author in 2001, Price recalled it being a “very unusual news conference.”
“Not only the network people, but local news directors were invited to come and sit as the questioning panel while Mr. Nixon did a news conference at an NAB meeting,” Price recalled. “And there was a group of radio station managers acting as cheerleaders, about 400 of them sitting out in the auditorium.”
A screenshot of a video of the March 19, 1974, press conference shows Grant Price asking President Richard Nixon his question. Photo courtesy of Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
The normal White House press corps was in attendance, and questions alternated between national and local reporters.
Nixon began by making a statement, indicating that the oil embargo then in place would be lifted, that compulsory gas rationing would not be necessary in the U.S., and that he was rescinding an order which closed all service stations on Sundays. He also noted that energy allocations to industry and agriculture would be increased so they could operate at full capacity.
The president then took a total of 19 questions from journalists in attendance. Iowa’s Price was No. 18 on the list.
“The question had to do with the fact that we were starting to have some real farm problems out here in Iowa under the fence row to fence row farm agricultural policy that was being promulgated by Nixon’s Agriculture Department,” Price said. A major slide in cattle prices the previous fall also adversely affected the agriculture industry. Price knew the topic well, having been raised on a Midwest cattle ranch.
“Mr. President… I would like to go back to the question of food production, if I may. Your administration has asked our farmers to embark on all-out production, I believe, as part of your program. In view of some of the USDA miscalculations of the past, notably with respect to the impact of the feed grain exports last year on domestic reserves, what assurance do the farmers have that their super output will not lead to a disastrous break in farm prices, as in fact has already occurred in the beef feeding industry?” Price asked Nixon.
The answer reverberated throughout the American farm economy.
President Richard Nixon’s quote “Farmers Never Had It So Good” during the National Association of Broadcasters televised press conference held in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 1974, became a headline the following day in the Des Moines Register.
“Well, first, let me say that despite what is called a disastrous break in farm prices, the farmers have never had it so good,” Nixon began. “Second, we want them to have it good, because the farmer is not going to produce unless he gets a good price—and I know Iowa well because, as you know, I was stationed there during the war.” (Nixon served as aide to the executive officer at the Naval Reserve Aviation Base in Ottumwa from October 1942 to May 1943.)
Price later recalled the directness of the answer, and said the president knew he had made a mistake.
“So Price asked this question about what the hell is going on with the farm economy in Iowa, and Nixon comes back and says, ‘Farmers have never had it so good.’ And then he goes on to try to fix it from there,” Price said. “As he started to work his way through it, he realized he probably had stepped right in it.”
Nixon continued his answer to Price’s question by defending his administration.
“The second point that I would like to make is this: That with regard to the USDA, I don’t think we can be too critical of their predictions, because there is one thing that the USDA, with all of their expertise, cannot control and that is the weather. The weather throws them off sometimes,” Nixon said. “This year, however, Secretary (Earl) Butz, for whom I have very great respect, has checked these facts, and I have gone over it with him over and over again. He assures me that the feed grains will continue, that we are going to have a bumper crop to begin with. But second, with regard to the demand, the demand worldwide, is still going to be very big.”
“I do not expect that the farmers of this country are going to have a bad year in 1974. But the prices that they had, for example, $14 for soybeans, that was too high. Now perhaps it is $7. That is still about $3 more than it was when it was $4. And $7 is pretty good,” he continued. “I am simply suggesting that as far as the farmers are concerned, I think they are doing very well, and our policies, our policies of opening new markets for them abroad—and that is one thing that our negotiations with the Europeans is all about—we believe that Europe’s markets should be open to our farmers rather than closed. We believe that Japan’s markets should be open to our farmers rather than closed. So, we will have plenty of markets abroad.
“But at the same time, we want to see to it that in our export programs abroad we don’t create shortages here which forces prices that the housewife pays to exorbitant heights, because our first concern is what the American housewife pays for things, and we are not going to be exporting so much that we have shortages here at home to feed our cattle and to do the other things that are necessary to keep prices on a reasonable basis.”
The public reaction to the statement was immediate.
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